There was an address for Cecily Wyers beneath her name: Wynyates, Barnwell St Stephen, Hampshire. No telephone number. ‘I’ll need to take this, too,’ Charlie said, turning the page.

Saul Hansard, Ruth Bussey’s former boss, was listed as the buyer of picture number 10: Six Green Bottles. Number 18 was the last picture on the list, at the bottom of the second page. Charlie wouldn’t have been entirely shocked to learn that Stephen Elton or Gemma Crowther had bought it. The unlikely had become so commonplace it no longer surprised her. Or at least, she thought it didn’t, until she saw who’d bought The Murder of Mary Trelease. The name triggered a series of hard jolts in her brain, sending her thoughts running blindly, chaotically into one another.

The painting had been sold to a Mr J. E. J. Abberton.

19 - Wednesday 5 March 2008

19

Wednesday 5 March 2008

‘Did you ever lie to please Aidan?’ Mary asks.

‘No. I don’t think so.’ I’ve only ever lied to protect myself, and Aidan.

‘Martha did. If she’d stayed true to herself—told the truth about herself—she and Aidan wouldn’t have formed their little bond against the others and gone off on their own. They wouldn’t have gone to bed together—Martha might still have pulled back from the brink. It was the night they spent together that took her love for Aidan and the despair that went with it to a deeper level.’

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘The Five Future Failures went for a drink after The Times interview. They started talking about it again—the life versus work thing. Ended up having a blazing row. They all drank too much, and the friendly banter turned nasty. Aidan was the butt of everyone’s jokes. What he’d said about living only for his work had sounded pompous even to Martha. If there’s one thing Aidan hates more than anything, it’s having people laugh at him. You’ve heard of Doohan Champion?’

‘I’ve heard the name. Isn’t he famous?’

‘Very.’

‘You said “The Five Future Failures”.’

‘Everyone fails eventually,’ says Mary briskly. ‘It takes some people longer than others, that’s all. Doohan called Aidan a self-important wanker. Martha defended him. She told them they were a bunch of shallow losers—if Aidan was pompous, so was she, she said. She agreed with him, after all, or rather she pretended she did. By attacking Aidan’s detractors, she finally fulfilled her only ambition: impressing him. They went off on their own, ripped the others’ personalities and creative achievements, such as they were, to shreds over a curry in Soho, and ended up back at the hotel The Times had booked for them—in Aidan’s room.’

‘Do you know what the hotel was called?’

‘The Conrad.’ Mary gives me an odd look. ‘In Chelsea Harbour. ’

Not the Drummond.

‘They had sex, according to the technical definition of the phrase.’